Page 41 of Rune

Another thing I hadn’t known about him.

I sighed, and stepped back into his touch until his fingers grazed the edges of my wound, bringing a dim sting with it. He shifted closer to put his other hand on my other cheek, close enough that every wisp of his dark hair was distinguishable and the scent of champagne noticeable on his breath. He studied my skin with intensity, while I tried to figure out where to look. I finally settled on the collar of his shirt just in time for the sting to melt away. A warm feeling spread over my cheek before it settled down.

He backed up. “Good as new.”

“Thank you. That’s a fancy trick.” I touched the skin. Not only was it healed, but I swore it was smoother too.

He chuckled. “You’re welcome. In the future, try not to angerFaðir. Can you do that for two months?”

“I shall be on my best behavior,” I promised.

“I’ll believe it when I see it.” He rested against the balcony railing and stared over Asgard in the direction of his parents’ home, though it was on the other side of the closest mountain. When he set his hand against the balustrade, a smudge of orange paint stuck out from his sleeve. I stared at it. Erik had mentioned he paints. I’d hated not knowing that already, but in truth, I knew nothing about the god before me, other than snippets of information adding up to nothing.

He wanted to travel but I didn’t know why. He liked to paint but I didn’t know what. Hisfaðirhad a temper but I didn’t know if that same hot streak ran through Ve, or what he was like in the quiet of evening when the day had died down. Was he carefree or wound with stress? Simple or complex?

What I did know was to convince people of our pretend love, we’d need to know the basics about each other. I set my elbows on the railing and braced myself beside him. “I didn’t know you were the god of healing.”

“As is my grandfather,” he said. “Which is where I got my name. I enjoy healing, it’s a soothing job that lets me fix things instead of taking them apart.”

It was different from the interests of the boys back home, who were more concerned with spearing things than mending them. Different from me, too. He’d called me savage before, but I wondered how deeply he meant that. Where everyone else saw me as a god, did he only see my axe and think that was all there was to me?

I pushed the thought away.

“I didn’t know you had a brother either,” I said. “And a sister.”

He stiffened, and his brows drew down. “I don’t have a sister.”

I frowned. “Erik told me you did.”

His voice was scratchy, like my words had prickled him. “I only have Leif.”

“Okay, I’m sorry I brought it up.” There was something there, but I didn’t want to pick at it yet. The morning was too gentle to disrupt, and after a crazy night, I wanted to stay far away from complicated matters.

He cleared his throat. “You have a sister though. No brothers?”

“Just five sisters. Tova, the most notable of them all.”

He faced me. “Is that animosity I detect?”

“Complication,” I corrected him. My hand went to my hair where my familiar braid was missing, and I thought of Tova and how she was doing. As the bite of Trig’s betrayal was lessoning, the throb of missing her was growing. “Tova is everything you’d expect from a girl marked by Odin. She’s strong, brave, and smart, but also kind and compassionate. Beautiful as well. It’s impossible to dislike her. I loved being her sister. The entire clan adored her, but that put her on edge with them. She’d tell me she hated going through town because she felt like she was being watched all the time—which she was—and it unnerved her. But when she was with me, she didn’t have any guards up. She was my best friend, and I got the best parts of her.” My hand dropped from my hair as my heart squeezed tight.

Ve waited for more of the story. When I didn’t say anything, he nudged me. “Why the complication then?”

I sighed. “It involves a boy. Do you think you can handle hearing about your fiancée and another love?”

He put a hand to his chest. “I will try to hold back the jealousy.”

“Okay then. I fell in love.”

Ve didn’t blink. “And she didn’t approve.”

“She approved,” I said. “She approved of him more than I realized.” I sped through the rest of the story so I didn’t have to relive it twice. “I wanted a life with him, and Trig told me he wanted to marry me too. Then, just as I think he’s about to propose, he asks Tova to marry him instead.”

“What?” Ve’s eyes bulged. “Why?”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. That one memory was enough to open a chasm of pain, and it threatened to drown me with all the hurt. Every insecurity lived inside that memory: when Trig chose my sister over me.

“Because I am no one,” I said. “And she is everything.”

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